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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently